Against Bush

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George W. Bush's decision to support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is a betrayal of our history as a nation and of our principles as a republic. It is an attack on gay families and on our very status as citizens in this country. I will not be voting to re-elect the president.

It is one thing to oppose gay marriage. Every major candidate for president opposes it, as do most politicians in both parties. Recognizing the union of same-sex couples is a significant change to the institution. We are right to approach such changes slowly and cautiously.

But supporting a constitutional amendment on the subject is another matter entirely. The Federal Marriage Amendment, introduced in both the House and the Senate, would prevent even state legislatures from recognizing gay marriages. It is an attempt to cut off debate before the people have a chance to think seriously about the issue.

An amendment would relegate gay Americans to permanent second-class status, something we have never amended the Constitution to do to any group of people. Next to the Constitution's majestic words mandating that government may not "deny to any person...the equal protection of the laws" would be a cheap taunt, "except for queers."

Though the president has no formal role in the constitutional amendment process, the prestige of his office makes his voice critical. If an amendment banning gay marriage actually passes, Bush will have done more harm to gay people than any president in our history.

In his February 24 announcement, Bush said we need a constitutional amendment to prevent activist judges and lawless public officials from imposing gay marriages on the whole country. That's nonsense. No federal court has imposed gay marriage on the country and none is likely to do so for the foreseeable future. We have never amended the Constitution to deal with hypothetical future court decisions.

Notably, though, Bush also suggested an amendment is needed to prevent a state from defining marriage as it sees fit. To reach this conclusion, he must repudiate two centuries of American history and the principles of the GOP respecting the power of the states.

Why abandon our history and tradition? Because, in Bush's words, marriage "promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society." He never bothered to explain how gay marriage threatens either of these things.

Marriage is "the most enduring human institution," he said. That's fine. Propose an amendment banning no-fault divorce and we can talk. But that would offend many of his traditional-values buddies who've had multiple divorces, none of them caused by gays.

Every time he says or does something anti-gay, Bush reminds us to treat people with "dignity and respect." Since he cannot even bring himself to use the word "gay" in public, that's an empty banality. Please don't patronize me by saying you respect my dignity while you're claiming I threaten Western civilization by loving another person.

I've repeatedly defended President Bush in this space. I've pointed out that, despite predictions to the contrary, he has hired many openly gay people to work in his administration. He has also left in place Clinton-era executive orders forbidding anti-gay discrimination in federal employment. These were precedent-setting moves for a Republican.

I'm also closer to Bush than to the Democrats on many non-gay issues. On defense and foreign policy, he has rightly taken the fight to the enemy more aggressively than a Democrat would. On economic policy, though he's been a profligate spender and an inconsistent defender of free trade, he's better than a Democrat would be on both counts.

Does my opposition to Bush make me a single-issue voter? Perhaps. But there are some issues of transcendent importance. They go to the core of our equal citizenship in this society. They outweigh many other considerations. When a president attacks your life and your family on national television and says we ought to write that attack for all time into the country's fundamental law, he has crossed a line that makes it impossible to support him with integrity.

George W. Bush is not the president of any country I recognize or want to be any part of. He is the president of some other country, one that believes the commitment of two people to one another is a threat to everyone else.

The country I love is better than that. It is a country that will defeat this vicious federal amendment and make its way, by fits and starts, over time and through debate, to a better understanding of gay life. It will climb out of the ignorance that produces the fear that fuels the call for an amendment.

Perhaps Bush doesn't actually believe an amendment is necessary and is only supporting one to satisfy religious conservatives. If so, that's even worse since he can't even claim sincerity as a defense. It's a new low in anti-gay political opportunism.

I've been a Republican since I could spell the word. At 13, I stuffed envelopes and made phone calls for Ronald Reagan. At 17, I formed a Republican group in my high school. In law school, I co-founded a conservative debating society. I've been a GOP precinct chairman and been a delegate to two state Republican conventions. I've attended three national conventions.

I remain a Republican and still believe something properly called conservatism can be squared with equality for gay Americans. But you can count me out this November.

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A Movement Matures.

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"So what does it mean that gay rights activists, once the standard-bearers for sexual freedom, are now preoccupied with the sober institution of marriage?" asks the New York Times' Tamar Lewin. One answer comes from David Greer, a gay Republican activist. "If you look back to the 60's, the movement was about liberation,'' he tells the Times. "Gay liberation had a lot to do with freeing people from gender roles, while marriage was seen as the oppressive male hegemonic institution, which lesbians, especially, didn't want any part of.'' Greer adds, however, that "Marriage actually should have been the goal of the movement all along."

Ah, but that would have been a very different movement, in a very different world. Suffice to say, the gay rights struggle went through a delayed and prolonged adolescence, and is now ready to settle down -- kind of like Warren Beatty.

Seriously , the outpouring of emotion as thousands of gay couples flock across country to exchange vows rivals the highpoint of grassroots AIDS protests in the '80s, and certainly makes the tame professional lobbying of late for ENDA and hate crimes laws -- the heretofore holy grails of the gay movement -- pale in comparison. Anti-discrimination statutes targeting the private sector never generated a groundswell of activism because the vast majority of gays and lesbians never encountered workplace discrimination -- or if they did, moved on to other jobs. Philosophically, too, many of us had doubts about more government mandates on the hiring and promotion decisions made by private employers, and about hate crime laws adding penalties not for actions, but for what criminals were thinking.

But the gay masses have awakened and are now demanding what they know to truly be a fundamental human right too long denied, and movement "leaders" are scrambling to catch up. (An aside: there were, of course, a few notable exceptions who showed real leadership -- Evan Wolfson, originally at Lambda Legal and now as head of Freedom to Marry, comes to mind.)

Still More on the Culture War.

"Bush's Backfire" is IGF contributing author Rick Rosendall's take on gay marriage and the culture war, at Salon.com. Rick writes:

The fundamentalist Christian right -- the constituency of Judge Roy Moore and other apocalyptic preachers -- will never be satisfied short of remaking the entire country in their own theocratic image, which is impossible in a pluralistic Western democracy. Yet continuing to let itself be held hostage to these fanatics will be ruinous to the [Republican] party's long-term mainstream appeal.

Meanwhile, Calif. Governor Schwarzenegger appeared on the Tonight Show with a different GOP message, telling Jay Leno that it would be "fine with me" if state law were changed to permit same-sex marriages, reports the LA Times. Schwarzenegger also strongly rejected President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. "I think those issues should be left to the state, so I have no use for a constitutional amendment or change in that at all," said the "Governator." (He did, however, reiterated his opposition to San Francisco's granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying city officials should abide by the current state law.)

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The New/Old Culture Wars.

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Columnist Joe Klein gives the latest round of the culture wars a look over, in Time magazine . This piece from the New York Times' Sunday Week in Review does the same. Both reference Mel Gibson's bloody "Passion of the Christ" and the Superbowl half-time show's sexual crudity, along with gay marriage, as the latest touchstones of cultural discord. Gibson's film, which has both anti-Semitic and homophobic overtones, is a religious-right wet dream, from what I hear (haven't, and won't, see it). I'd say, it's the theology of Sissy Spacek's mother in "Carrie." (Here's Christopher Hitchens' take, from Slate.) But the Superbowl antics gave the country a taste of the culture left's sexual infantilism, and provoked an understandable backlash that's aided the anti-gay marriage cause (since both get lumped together as manifestations of threatening sexual anarchy).

The polarization really is stunning, but we should recall that times of harmony in the U.S. have been few and far between. From the revolution to the civil war to the sufferage, prohibition, abortion and civil rights struggles, polarization has been a long-standing theme, as the dialectics between greater liberty/equality and preserving tradition/social cohesion play themselves out. What could be more American?

Taking Count.

Oxblog finds at least 44 U.S. senators are opposed to the anti-marriage amendment, leaving the amendment's supporters far shy of the two-thirds needed. No time for complacency, but certainly a good sign.

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It Says What?

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One reason there's so much confusion over whether the language of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment would ban civil unions, too, is that its drafters wanted to obscure the full extent of their proposal. Thus, the odd wording that would make unenforceable "marital status or the legal incidents thereof" for same-sex couples. The Washington Post has some insights into this scheme in a Sunday op-ed titled The Amendment Speaks for Itself -- which makes clear that the language now before Congress "would render civil unions -- as well as domestic partnerships -- meaningless."

In fact, what may doom this whole dark business is the religious right's insistence that any amendment either covertly or overtly nix civil unions as well -- a position that even many Republicans now find extreme.

More Recent Postings

2/22/04 - 2/28/04

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Discord on the Right.

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By all accounts, supporters of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) lack the required two-thirds majorities in either house of Congress. That's why, suddenly, we're seeing conservatives scrambling for some sort of "compromise" language. The typically gay-unfriendly editorial page of the Wall Street Journal on Friday opined that "Now, even some who support a constitutional remedy wonder about the language. There is debate about whether the amendment's language would bar states from endorsing civil unions, which Mr. Bush says they should be free to do."

Another example: An interesting column by Michael Horowitz of the conservative Hudson Institute, published at Tech Central Station, says the proposed anti-gay marriage/civil union wipeout under the FMA "will please some conservatives and evangelicals, but will go nowhere." Horowitz suggests an alternative saying civil marriages will be determined by voters or legislatures of the states, with no state requried to recognize any other's marriages. It's less draconian, certainly, than what's before Congress now, but still unnecessary and a slap -- in what other civil rights matter are state courts barred from ruling? Still, it's a good sign that the present amendment is already hemorrhaging support on the right.

More Evidence the Wind Will Not Subside.

The Green Party mayor of New Paltz, NY, is performing gay marriages, and hundreds have flocked upstate to be wed. Reports the NY Times:

Coming with little warning, the wedding ceremonies here left many lawyers and politicians struggling to respond, while independent observers and advocates for gay rights said the move may signal a shift in the scope of the cultural struggles -- from big cities to small towns.

"politicians, advocates, and outside observers said the events of Friday demonstrated how quickly the issue is moving and how unpredictable it has become.

Indeed it has.

And here's a good wrap up from the Washington Post on what's happening in California.

Enough 'Free Passes'.

An editorial in this week's Washington Blade takes aim at John Kerry's support for a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. "We give gay-friendly politicians a 'free pass' almost anytime they tell us that supporting our equality would require actual courage on their part," writes editor Chris Crain.

Equal Time: Academic and author Tibor Machan, who is "neither left nor right," zeroes in on Bush's confused logic. He writes:

Mr. Bush is, in fact, trying to have it both ways, a limited government dedicated primarily to protecting our individual rights to liberty, and an intrusive federal government that is dictating to all what they ought to call their romantic unions.

Machan also has this aside:

...among [those faithful to] the Reverend Moon, people get married en masse, without even knowing to whom they are to be married; talk about a bizarre idea for American culture, yet nothing the law should prevent it.

Worth Noting.

This is from the Blade's "On the Record" compilation. It was sent to the S.C. legislature by James and Irene Smith:

The institution of marriage doesn't need protection from loving, caring gay South Carolinians like our son and his partner; it needs protection from demagogues and hypocrites like John Graham Altmann III who spew bigotry and who have more ex-spouses than they have clean underwear."

Rep. Altman, a leading gay-marriage opponent, is now on wife no. 3.

History Lesson

Theodore Roosevelt wanted a constitutional amendment limiting divorce and barring polygamy. It went nowhere, too.

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The Case for Federal Civil Unions

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First published February 28, 2004, in the Valley News (Vermont/New Hampshire).

The winter of 2004 will enter history as one of the stormiest ever when it comes to gay equality in America. Thousands of gay couples have tied the knot in San Francisco; the California Supreme Court will rule on the legality of these marriages. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has told the Bay State to issue marriage licenses to gay couples starting in May; the state legislature is trying to head the court off at the pass. In both states, Republican governors are adamantly opposed to gay marriage.

And now President Bush has thrown his support behind the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would invalidate the marriage licenses of gay couples and dictate to all 50 states that gay couples can never, ever be legally married in America.

We are reaching a showdown in our culture war about where gay men and lesbians fit in American life. Many citizens believe that gays are morally degenerate and that any recognition of the "homosexual lifestyle," especially by governments, all but guarantees the collapse of Western society. Others believe that in a nation founded on the principle of liberty and justice for all, gay Americans are entitled to the same rights as every other American. And one of those basic rights is the right to fall in love, to set up house, and to grow old with the person you love.

So let us review some of the facts about marriage in these United States.

First, unless you have seen the marriage licenses of couples, you cannot know for certain whether they are legally married. Ironically, one of the few times you need to produce evidence that you are legally married comes when a marriage ends, either through death or divorce. Most of us assume that the people who tell us they are married are telling us the truth. (Given what we know of the trustworthiness of some of these people, perhaps we should question whether they are legally married.)

Second, marriage is less an order from the state than a state of order. We all know legally married people whose marriages are a sham. We all know unmarried people who live together whose lives embody the true meaning of marriage. This, in fact, has been the big news coming out of San Francisco. When a lesbian couple clocks 51 years together and cannot get legally married, then our definitions of marriage need to be adjusted.

Third, if people say you are married, then you are. And this is the other change the gay marriage avalanche has unleashed. Bush expresses concerns about courts redefining marriage. But everyday Americans, gay and straight, have been redefining marriage for years, and no constitutional amendment can stop them. When our friends refer to us as married, I don't say, "Excuse me, but we're only united in a civil union." The fact is: we are married. The state may not call our relationship a marriage, but that's what it is.

Lastly, civil marriage has a unique place in federal law, with over 1,000 benefits assigned to it. Only the federal government can bestow these entitlements, and at the present time, these entitlements are only bestowed upon legally married Americans.

So what can be done in our culture war over gay marriage? Here's what I suggest: Put a federal civil union bill on the table. Call it the Vermont Compromise.

Imagine a scenario where Congress passes a law that extends federal benefits to couples that are joined in a civil union. This would respond to those who argue that the only way to obtain federal benefits is through legal marriage and assuages those who want to leave the definition of marriage untouched. The Vermont Compromise also would hand the issue back to state legislatures, which could decide on their own whether to pass state civil union legislation without worry of interference from Washington or other states.

Granted, some conservatives grouse that civil unions are marriage in everything but name, and some liberals complain that unless unions are called marriages, they lack the social prestige that marriage has. But lawmakers should be wrestling with weightier issues than the "threat" of redefining the word "marriage." A drawn-out culture war on this issue is not in anyone's best interest.

When Congress starts to consider the FMA, here's hoping a courageous lawmaker will introduce a federal civil union bill. Let's debate whether gay couples merit equality under the law, not whether straight couples can keep the word "marriage" to themselves. Let's discuss the special rights that empty-nest and childless straight couples currently enjoy and seriously examine what happens if we extend these rights to gay couples with children.

And one more suggestion: To avoid charges of separate but unequal, make civil unions open to straight couples. If conservatives are serious about protecting the sanctity of marriage, they should start by separating what the state does from what religious institutions do, which is to protect sacred things.

Our civil war over gay marriage has already left many emotionally wounded. A battle over the FMA will only multiply the number of casualties. The Vermont Compromise wouldn't satisfy everyone. But it likely would unite us more than divide us.

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A Two-Party Movement: More Than Ever.

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Lest we forgot: "Kerry Backs State Ban on Marriage" was a headline Thursday in the Boston Globe.

Presidential candidate John F. Kerry said yesterday that he supports amending the Massachusetts Constitution to ban gay marriage and provide for civil unions for gay couples. In his most explicit remarks on the subject yet, Kerry told the Globe that he would support a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would prohibit gay marrriage so long as, while outlawing gay marriage, it also ensured that same-sex couples have access to all legal rights that married couples receive.

Slightly better than Bush, but only slightly. While Bush doesn't support civil unions, he hasn't condemned them. So we're left with Bush wanting to amend the federal Constitution, and Kerry wanting states to amend their own individual constitutions. No, I'm not, and will not, support Bush. But the Democrats had better get their own house in order before pontificating about the evils of gays who work within the GOP.

A side observation: if more gays had worked within the GOP, Bush would have had reason to fear alienating us. Abandoning the GOP to the religious right simply ensures that only the religious right's concerns will be taken into consideration. Leaving aside Bush, who is now unsupportable, there is a greater need than ever for moderate, conservative, and libertarian-minded gays to work to reform the Republican party, at all levels.

Fair-Minded Conservatives Oppose Anti-Marriage Amendment.

From the NY Daily News:

Senate sources said Bush will have an even tougher time winning votes there, where maverick Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is an opponent. McCain believes states should handle the issue and that it isn't appropriate to change the Constitution.

From the NY Post:

Gov. Pataki, normally a loyal ally of President Bush, yesterday broke with him over gay marriage, saying he opposes a constitutional amendment to ban it. -- [Republican] Mayor Bloomberg came out against a constitutional amendment a day earlier.

Not Surrendering.

"Gay Conservatives Fight Bush on Wedding Vow" is an LA Times headline. It may be a long, hard fight, but it's one that must be made.

By the way, IGF's co-manaing editor Jonathan Rauch (who is neither a Republican nor a conservative) answered questions about gay marriage and politics Thursday in a live chat on the Washington Post's website. Here's the transcript.
Jon says:

My answer: go state by state. Marriage is a community-based institution and works best when communities are ready for it. That helps protect against unintended consequences, while recognizing gay unions. "

Most of the conservative arguments against[same-sex marriage] are really, on unpacking, arguments for it. -- Marriage is indeed a fundamental institution necessary for societal existence and well-being. That's why gay people should be included.

The whole transcript isn't long, and is well worth reading.

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A Betrayal of Conservatism.

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Much commentary today about President Bush's formal endorsement of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. Here's a sampling of two of the more interesting pieces.

From James Glassman, on the website of the conservative American Enterprise Institute:

"by supporting the FMA, the President is turning his back on conservative principles of federalism and limited government. Gay marriage arouses hot emotions on both sides. But there is a sensible solution, and it's being followed: Let each state decide on its own.

That is the view of Vice President Cheney. "Different states are likely to come to different conclusions," he said during the 2000 campaign, "and that's appropriate." "Many staunch Republicans agree with Cheney's approach. "I hold the Constitution in highest regard and I don't like to see it trifled with," says former Rep. Bob Barr. "I'm a firm believer in federalism. Even though I'm not an advocate for same-sex marriage, I want the states to decide the issue."

If the President is hunting for amendments, he might try one limiting federal spending".

"this divided country needs a compassionate conservative, not a cynic who panders to the meanest instincts.

And, from libertarian-minded, conservative-friendly columnist James Pinkerton, in Newsday:

The gay rush to the altar has been compared to earlier spontaneous political combustion, in which old rules go up in a sudden whoosh of smoke. "

But now George W. Bush is gearing up to support a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, backed by a solid majority of Americans. Well, here's a prediction: Such an amendment will never pass. Why? Because there are too many gays and lesbians living a conservative lifestyle, now aspiring to be even more conservative by getting legally hitched. And in the final analysis, the political establishment will not be hard-hearted enough to crush their legal and human rights.

There is a crying need in America for the leadership of a fiscally conservative, free-trade supporting, excessive-regulation restraining, tax limiting, entitlement reforming, strong-defense minded, internationally engaged, limited-government president. That does not describe George W. Bush, whose domestic spending has been fiscally profligate and who has made a habit of over-reaching into areas where the federal government has no business being.

But it's certainly not John Kerry, whose muddled foreign policy pronouncements sound like warmed over Jimmy Carterism, and who will certainly increase taxes and business regulation, block fiscally prudent entitlement reform, placate the trial lawyer lobby by nixing much needed tort reform (especially if Edwards is veep), and appoint the liberal version of intrusive government meddlers to positions of power throughout his administration. Pick your poisons.

These past few days, I can't help thinking of what the country, now torn apart with the ugliest partisan rancor in memory, might have been like if John McCain had managed to buck the GOP establishment four years ago and win against crazy Al Gore.

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Bush Does It — and May Live to Regret It.

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George W. Bush has now pushed the religious right's battle to ban and nullify gay marriages into the forefront of the 2004 presidential race. As Andrew Sullivan writes, he may have "succeeded in ensuring that almost no gay people will vote for or support the Republican party for a generation." I'd say that if enough congressional Republicans come to their senses and help derail the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, there may still be hope for the party -- especially if the Democrats veer as far to the economic left as Bush is steering the GOP to the cultural right.

Nevertheless, the outpouring of emotion unleashed today rivals that felt back in 1986 when the Supreme Court's infamous Bowers v. Hardwick ruling upheld sodomy laws that made gay people a criminal class. It took 17 years to right that wrong. Hopefully, we can keep the FMA from defacing the Constitution and again making second-class citizenship for gays and lesbians the law of the land.

And I do think the odds are in our favor. While Americans don't support gay marriage, a majority think mucking with the U.S. Constitution to enshrine discrimination is beyond the pale. And the more they think about it, I believe, the more Bush's pandering to "the base" is going to seem like an extremist act. Bush II is repeating the "culture war" embrace that helped doom Bush I, and he's too limited a human being to see it.

I think the Log Cabin Republicans have struck the right chord. Their statement says:

As conservative Republicans, we are outraged that any Republican -- particularly the leader of our party and this nation -- would support any effort to use our sacred United States Constitution as a way of scoring political points in an election year.

We are disappointed that some Republicans leaders have abandoned the conservative principles on which this party was built. Liberty, equality and Federalism form the bedrock of Republican values. The President and some other leaders in our party have turned away from these principles to satisfy the radical right in an election year.

I guess it may take another presidential loss before the GOP learns that pandering to extremism is not a winning platform.

On a lighter note, here's a nice bit of parody of anti-gay marriage paranoia from The Indepundit's website.

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Gay Marriage, then Polygamy?

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First published on February 25, 2004, in the Chicago Free Press.

When some opponents of gay marriage try to argue for their view, after they ritually condemn homosexuality they will claim that gay marriage "damages society" and "undermines marriage" in some unspecified way and end by postulating deplorable consequences of gay marriage: "If we allow gay marriage, then people will want to practice polygamy and marry their pets."

Well, when our opponents are reduced to arguing that gay marriage is bad because it might lead to something else, we have won the argument. When they have to change the subject, it means they do not have any good arguments against gay marriage itself.

You would think if the religious right were really so worried about polygamy - and whatever they privately think they do argue that way - they would use their energy to a) explain clearly how gay marriage could plausibly lead to polygamy and b) explain clearly why polygamy is bad. Yet they make little effort to do either.

Perhaps that is because nothing in the principles supporting gay marriage provides any support for the legalization of any other type of relationship, much less polygamy And the legalization of polygamy seems very unlikely anyway in modern societies like the U.S.

Over the centuries, heterosexual marriage shifted from being a merger contract between families or an economic and sexual arrangement to assure creation of legal heirs and caretakers for one's old age, and came to be understood primarily as a companionate relationship of mutual caring between two people who love each other.

But once the affectional bond became the central element of marriage, the rationale for limiting it to pairs who would procreate lost its force. Gays want nothing more than to participate in "traditional marriage" thus understood - marriage for the benefit of the marrying partners: meshing a person's life with someone they love.

Gays are not arguing that people should be able to have whatever marital arrangement they want. They argue only that everyone should have access to marriage as it is now commonly understood. Nor are gays arguing for any legal rights other people do not have. They argue that they are uniquely denied a right everyone else already has - the right to marry someone they love.

By contrast, an advocate of legal polygamy cannot argue that he (or she) is seeking anything akin to traditional marriage - unless the Old Testament is considered "traditional." Nor can he argue he is being denied a right that everyone else has. He would have to argue that he desires and deserves a new right that no one currently has. Perhaps that argument could be made but it has not been so far.

Now, if gay marriage opponents wish to argue that it could lead to polygamy, they also have to explain why polygamy is undesirable. After all, polygamy survived for centuries in many parts of the world and lingers in most Muslim countries today. In fact, the religious right has the causal relationship backward. Gay marriage does not lead to polygamy. Polygamy, however indirectly, led to gay marriage.

In any case, while there are some interesting arguments against legal polygamy, none of which would be weakened by gay marriage, it is more relevant to point out that polygamy was a response to certain pre-modern social conditions but that modern egalitarian, capitalist and individualist societies create little need for and considerable pressure against polygamy.

Polygamy flourished in primitive, male-dominated societies where women had little freedom of movement, education or employment skills and were dependent on men, where inequalities of wealth allowed some men to acquire several wives while others had none, and/or where male deaths in frequent military campaigns sharply reduced the number of potential husbands.

But in modern societies, women have equal access to advanced education and economic independence, social value apart from the status or wealth of a husband, and an equal male-female ratio. It is hard to imagine many women in the contemporary U.S. cheerfully welcoming competing wives or voluntarily becoming a second, third, or fourth wife.

In addition, women in third world nations - and southern Utah - who have left polygamous households describe them as rife with favoritism, rivalries, domestic abuse, and the like. It is hard to imagine a modern, educated woman entering or staying in such a family environment.

Nor would polygamy seem desirable for most males. Assuming an equal male-female population, a man who married two or more women would deprive one or more heterosexual men of the pleasures of a romantic, sexual and domestic life with a wife.

In fact, we may say that just as same-sex marriage is good because it allows more people to enjoy the pleasures and benefits of marriage, polygamy is undesirable because it deprives some people of the pleasures and benefits of marriage.

In short: None of the principles supporting gay marriage offers support for polygamy. Rather the opposite. And polygamy is not likely to be widely advocated because - unlike same-sex marriage - it answers no needs and removes no inequities in modern societies.

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